‘Has he been to any recent sessions?’
Keri shook her head. ‘No, not for a while.’
‘A while?’
‘Several months. At least.’
‘Can you remember his name?’ Hunter asked, then immediately corrected himself. ‘Or the name he used in the group?’
‘Umm…’ Keri looked down at the floor, as if searchingfor something. ‘Michael,’ she replied before nodding firmly at Hunter. ‘The name he gave us was Michael.’
Of course he would use a common name,Hunter thought.A name that’s easy to remember and equally easy to forget.
‘How do new members join?’ he asked. ‘Is there a roster… an attendance sheet… anything?’
‘Not really. People who’d like to come and join the group for the first time can either call or send an email via a web form. Both services have an automated reply with the location, the rules and the starting time. These are people looking for help, so no one is turned down. There’s no screening either. Sometimes we can have as many as twelve to fifteen people in a session.’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes only two or three. Whenever people want to come back, all they have to do is turn up on the night. That’s it.’
‘And you’re sure that this Michael was the person who sat next to Terry Wilford during the sessions he attended… the person he talked to?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty sure.’
‘Can you maybe describe him for me?’
Keri’s head tilted sideways.
‘Whatever you can remember,’ Hunter pushed. ‘Height… body type… anything you can recall.’
‘Umm…’ Keri thought about it for an instant. ‘He’s tall, maybe just a couple of inches shorter than you. He’s also… athletic? I’d say. Clean-shaven… short dark hair… dark eyes.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it, really.’
‘Do you have a ballpark age?’
‘I’d say somewhere in his late thirties… maybe very early forties.’
‘How about any distinctive marks? Tattoos? Scars? Anything?’
Keri’s bottom lip pursed forward as she tried to remember. ‘Umm… yeah, actually.’ She snapped her fingers before pointing at Hunter. ‘A couple of his fingers are a little… odd-shaped.’
‘His fingers?’
‘Yeah, on one of his hands, but I can’t be sure which. It’s not exactly noticeable, but I remember them because I’ve handed him a cup of coffee a few times at session breaks and they caught my attention.’
‘Oddly shaped in what way?’ Hunter asked.
Another shrug. ‘Just curved a little awkwardly at the knuckles. As if maybe they were broken when he was younger and didn’t heal in the way they should have. I remember thinking that that must’ve been one of the reasons why he had become violent toward his children or wife. The reason why he had joined our group. He probably suffered constant violent physical abuse when he was younger, which can, in time, lead to modeling behavior. That’s when—’
‘Children imitate their parents,’ Hunter said with a nod. ‘Or anyone they look up to. If the abuse was constant, the brain can misinterpret that as normal. Once they grow up, they can easily model that same behavior. Like father, like son, kind of thing.’
‘Exactly,’ Keri agreed. ‘Sixty to seventy percent of parents who become abusive toward their children and/or partners have, in fact, grown up in an abusive household themselves.’ Her expression became thoughtful once again. Hunter noticed it and pushed.
‘Something else you remember?’
‘Yeah,’ Keri nodded. ‘Just now we were talking about being a “passer” during the group sessions, remember? Michael was one of those – definitely the quiet type – didn’t talk much, shy, passed often when his turn came… but he was very attentive to others and their accounts.’
A little voice inside Hunter’s head whispered:But of course he was.
Forty-Seven
The next day, Garcia took a trip to Morningside High School in Inglewood, to talk to Roberto De Souza – the psychologist who ran the second domestic violence support group that met on Tuesday evenings.
